Genre-lly speaking
Nov. 8th, 2010 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHey,
So Sci-Fi and Fantasy often suffers from "genre ghetto" where the category gets dismissed as "trivial" or "light fluffy reading". It's not "serious" enough or it's "all the same". When there's really a lot of very interesting stuff that comes out in the genre that makes for very good reading.
In my head the conversations run like this:
"Oh, sci-fi. It's all just like Star Trek or Star Wars or whatever."
"Well, there's actually some really good stuff like [insert good stuff here*]."
Or
"Oh, fantasy. It's all Lord of the Rings or Conan or whatever."
"Not all of it, you might be surprised with [insert stuff here**] -- they're really good."
And then there are the times when sci-fi/fantasy break out into "literature" and people bend over backwards to deny it's genre roots (and most authors of these books giggle at the contortions).
That's not to say there isn't a lot of dross on the shelves, but there's some really good stuff in there too. But I've been wondering lately if there's other types of genre fiction that might be suffering from the same misunderstanding and if I was a devoted fan of them, could I turn around and answer the critics. Specifically, I'm wondering about:
And there are probably others, but those (along with SF/F) are the big classifications I see in bookstores. I feel like it might be very hard for Romance or Mystery novels to break their molds because their genre is heavily focused on their plots (people falling in love, a mystery solved) whereas SF/F can have any sort of plot, it's all the trappings (spaceships, elves, etc.) that consign it to the genre bin. But that could easily be my own myopia talking. And that's the point of this post. What kinds of responses would genre fans give for:
"Oh, Romances. It's all Jane Austen or Harlequin Bodice-Rippers where people spend 150 pages inventing reasons not to be together."
"Oh, Mysteries. It's all quirky investigators and their little clockwork puzzles or hard-boiled detectives punching things until a solution falls out."
"Oh, Westerns. It's all gun fights and bad guys and sex with dance hall girls."
What's hiding in other genre ghettos?
Tom
* How about Anathem, Courship Rites, and Blindsight (oh and Dhalgren if I'm feeling mean)?
** Trial of Flowers, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and Little, Big.
So Sci-Fi and Fantasy often suffers from "genre ghetto" where the category gets dismissed as "trivial" or "light fluffy reading". It's not "serious" enough or it's "all the same". When there's really a lot of very interesting stuff that comes out in the genre that makes for very good reading.
In my head the conversations run like this:
"Oh, sci-fi. It's all just like Star Trek or Star Wars or whatever."
"Well, there's actually some really good stuff like [insert good stuff here*]."
Or
"Oh, fantasy. It's all Lord of the Rings or Conan or whatever."
"Not all of it, you might be surprised with [insert stuff here**] -- they're really good."
And then there are the times when sci-fi/fantasy break out into "literature" and people bend over backwards to deny it's genre roots (and most authors of these books giggle at the contortions).
That's not to say there isn't a lot of dross on the shelves, but there's some really good stuff in there too. But I've been wondering lately if there's other types of genre fiction that might be suffering from the same misunderstanding and if I was a devoted fan of them, could I turn around and answer the critics. Specifically, I'm wondering about:
- Romances
- Mysteries
- Westerns
And there are probably others, but those (along with SF/F) are the big classifications I see in bookstores. I feel like it might be very hard for Romance or Mystery novels to break their molds because their genre is heavily focused on their plots (people falling in love, a mystery solved) whereas SF/F can have any sort of plot, it's all the trappings (spaceships, elves, etc.) that consign it to the genre bin. But that could easily be my own myopia talking. And that's the point of this post. What kinds of responses would genre fans give for:
"Oh, Romances. It's all Jane Austen or Harlequin Bodice-Rippers where people spend 150 pages inventing reasons not to be together."
"Oh, Mysteries. It's all quirky investigators and their little clockwork puzzles or hard-boiled detectives punching things until a solution falls out."
"Oh, Westerns. It's all gun fights and bad guys and sex with dance hall girls."
What's hiding in other genre ghettos?
Tom
* How about Anathem, Courship Rites, and Blindsight (oh and Dhalgren if I'm feeling mean)?
** Trial of Flowers, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and Little, Big.
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no subject
Date: 2010-11-08 04:44 pm (UTC)For mysteries, Chandler and Hammett are both very good and well-respected. Indeed, I think if you haven't read Chandler, you're wasting your ability to read English.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-08 04:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-08 05:31 pm (UTC)Ignoring for a bit our differences about Jane Austen: the key phrase here is "the worst of it."
And the best of the romance genre, like the "best" of SF and the "best" of mystery, isn't marketed as genre. The thing is, there are good and bad authors within any genre, and there are genre conventions that are what a reader of, say, mystery, expects when he picks up a mystery novel.
For romance, I personally recommend Jennifer Cruise. I suspect Lucy March will be worth watching when her next book comes out. Nora Roberts does a VERY good job of showing how much play there is in a formula. At least Cruise and Roberts are currently shelves in lit-fic rather than in romance.
Tessa Dare and Eloisa James have both written some nice smart snappy books that *are* marketed as romance - they aren't the next great american novel, but they're fun and well written, and yes, written to a formula.
If the whole romance genre would be in=mproved by being Jane Austen, would the whole SF genre be improved by being Huxley? Spenser?
no subject
Date: 2010-11-08 08:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-08 09:51 pm (UTC)And maybe a little defensive of romance as a genre - it's like country music. People tend to be dismissive just because.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-09 02:03 am (UTC)I can relate. I write roleplaying games. When I don't get "dismissive" I get "what's that?"
no subject
Date: 2010-11-09 04:17 am (UTC)